At Honda's Wako Research Center, a mechanically powered walking assist prototype system was recently unveiled (Katoh and Hirata, The Concept of a Walking Assistance Suit, Welfare Engineering Symposium, The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers, August 2001). The target application is to help the elderly and disabled people to either execute daily tasks they could not previously perform, or use less physical exertion than they currently employ for these tasks. The tasks considered include walking, lifting, sitting/standing, and climbing stairs. A big challenge in developing control algorithms for exoskelton systems is the control problem. The complexity of the central nervous system (CNS) control and the interface between voluntary control and external artificial control are challenging, unanswered questions.
Thus, there is a great need for a human assist system and a method which will mitigate the interface between voluntary control and external artificial control.